Page 86 - Plastics News July 2025

IN THE NEWS
Industry steps up
Industry executives say they are more commit-
ted than ever to recycling and are eager to prac-
tice pyrolysis at large scale. Their firms are build- feedstock coming from multiple sources.
ing facilities that are bigger than before and are
testing them in the real world. They are aware of
the wrinkles in a pyrolysis-based recycling sys-
tem and say they are determined to iron them
out.
Brightmark is experiencing its share of obsta-
cles. The plant that the company is starting up
in Indiana, at a cost of $260 million, is designed
to convert 100,000 t of mixed plastic waste per
year into naphtha, diesel, and industrial waxes.
At the end of 2020, Bob Powell, Brightmark’s
CEO, said construction of the facility was 80%
complete and ready to ramp up production in
2021. But by April 2022, the company had manu-
factured only about 2,000 t of product.
Readying for pyrolysis
Many other companies are taking that approach
and attempting to procure more mixed waste. “If
you talk about true circularity going forward at
scale, you are talking about mixed plastic waste;
you are not talking about presorted polyolefins,”
says Artem Vityuk, a global market manager at
BASF. “You are really trying to expand the base
of feedstock, and you need to be able to work
with really contaminated feed.”
That means the output of pyrolysis units that
consume a broad array of plastics must be up-
graded to eliminate contamination. BASF re-
cently introduced a new portfolio, called PuriCy-
86 PLASTICS NEWS
cle, of catalysts and adsorbents that eliminate
such contaminants. The portfolio targets pyroly-
sis plants trying to meet customer specifications
and petrochemical companies that want to clean
Vityuk explains that contaminants such as halo-
gens, oxygen, nitrogen, and metals are all found
in the hydrocarbons coming out of pyrolysis
plants. “That is what is in the plastics,” he says.
These contaminants can be nettlesome. An eth-
ylene cracker might tolerate only 1 ppm of chlo-
rine in its feed, so even one piece of PVC pipe
in a pyrolysis reactor’s daily delivery can cause
problems for a chemical company customer.
BASF offers adsorbents to soak up the chlorine
compounds. The product line also includes ad-
sorbents and prehydrogenation catalysts mar-
keted as being able to filter out particulate mat-
ter and eliminate the most reactive compouinds
from the feedstock stream.
BASF also offers hydroprocessing catalysts
similar to those that oil refineries use to displace
sulfur with hydrogen. “We actually optimized
the catalyst to make sure it’s suited for service
in plastic pyrolysis oils,” Vityuk says. “It’s not a
copy and paste from the refining area.” For ex-
ample, rather than focusing on sulfur, the cata-
lysts help remove nitrogen, which is in plastics
such as nylon.
Source – c & en
July 2025